So it's 10:30 am. I've had a hour and a half catnap that, in hindsight, was not a smart thing to do on my part. I'm tired, I'm grumpy, I'm irritable. The girls start arriving, one by one for their 10:45 am basketball game. It's 10:41 am when the assistant coach arrives. He's quickly asked for the girls roster, which he does not have. So he has each girl sign her name to the game roster. All 5 of them. The ref's call everyone to center court. They do their thing. I'm hunting the crowds; I'm scanning the doors in hopes of locating more lost girls from our team. Nope. Only 5 of 9 girls showed for the game. Which means we had 5 completely exhausted girls at the end of the game. The away team had all 9 of their girls so they were able to switch out so that they each got to rest.

I knew right away the odds were against us. First, the assistant had only been to 1 of 4 practices. Two, we knew the coach wasn't going to be there, but still, how do you not show up for a game Coach? Three, we only had FIVE girls.

In our little YMCA our 5th & 6th grade girls are awkward at best. Some trip over their own feet. Some are worried about messing up their hair. Some may even sweat, Heaven forbid! Some are hormonal and "just don't feel like doing it". You get the idea. Her team is no different. Talk about an eclectic group of girls! The tallest girl is 5'5" & the smallest is 4' & 80 lbs. The 2 of them together are a force to be reckoned with and carry the team. They have this awesome system down pat between them & it is amazing to watch them in action. The Child is the 2nd tallest on the team. She just does the bare minimum to get by.

My daughter, hasn't a clue when it comes to basketball. She doesn't have an aggressive bone in her body. She will not try to take the ball away from you. She misses 8 of her 10 shots. She's not aggressive when blocking you. But she runs that court from one end to the other like nobody's business.

Hubby & I accidentally made her cry during her game on Saturday. Oops. But in my defense, I'm passionate when it comes to cheering her/her team on and I'd had a catnap that I never should have taken & I was worse off for it. I'm beginning to think I need to stop going to her basketball games before I get kicked out of the YMCA, permanently. But until that happens, I'll keep going to support my daughter.

So anyway, the ball goes wild and comes bouncing toward my daughter. She stands there and watches it bounce by as it bounces out of bounds. Seriously? Are you kidding me, kid? Hubby & I were yelling at her to get it before it got out of bounds. Perhaps we were being too aggressive in our yelling. It goes out of bounds, she looks at us, yelling at her, and says, "I'm sorry! I tried!" and proceeds to fold her arms across her chest and break out in tears. sigh

deep breath in ... sigh

try it again ... deep breath in ... sigh

So anyway, during halftime I quickly run over to her, apologize, promise her she can fuss at me when we get home; remind her that her team needs her to be on her A game so she could best do that by drying her tears, ignoring her father & I, and proceed to have the best game of her life. The coach gave her a quick pep talk and got her mind back in the game.

Then end of the 3rd period (I had been calling them quarters until Hubby had a shitfit when he heard me say that & quickly corrected me lol) a girl from their team shows up for the game.

Say what? That's right, she comes strolling in & expects to play the 4th quarter. Talk about pissed? Oh I went mad! I feel that was rude of her. If she couldn't bother to show up at the beginning of the game & play the whole game like her team mates, then she didn't deserve to play the final quarter & share in the glory of the win or loss. But the assistant coach let her play. Man I was livid. Which in turn made Hubby livid at me lol. He even told me if I didn't sit down and shut up that he would beat the hell out of me to shut me up lol. Good thing I know he would never actually do that. But that was his way of getting through to me that I had got my point across and I needed to sit down, shut up or else I'd get kicked out. My family is lucky I love them. Otherwise I would have turned Redneck Sassy lose on all of them!

Oh, which reminds me ... so here we are ... all the odds stacked against them ... and the little shits win the game!! They were 2-2 end of 1st, us 10 - them 8 at half-time, 10-10 end of 3rd period and they won with a final score of 20-15.

I sure do love that my child is experiencing the glory of being the underdogs! What a perfect way to learn life's lessons ...

1) When the odds are against you, you can still win!

2) When you try hard enough, you can still win!

3) Never judge a book by it's cover!

4) You may not win them all and that is ok! (They lost their 1st game 12-9) (They only won 2 of the 6 volleyball games they played and ended up winning the tournament championship!)

Now if we can just work on my work/sleep/game ratio I might just be able to prevent myself from getting banned from the YMCA! lol I'll work on it ...

I had more to write about but my 7 am relief has called in sick and I now have to find a replacement so that I can go home and take The Child to the emergency room for a possible ear infection and/or sinus infection and/or strep throat. Her doctor's office is closed on weekends and apparently the only urgent care in town is also closed on weekends. Lord knows when I will make it to bed. Not that I am tired or anything. I managed to make it to bed at 1:30 pm yesterday only to be woken up at 7 pm about The Child running a fever.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate working night shift on the weekends? UGH!

Till next time ...